I have had Type 1 diabetes for about 15 years. I am female and 29 years old. I am taking Lovan 80 mg a day for depression. Lovan has had the effect of lowering my blood-sugar levels and seems to speed up weight loss. I am towards the upper edge of my appropriate weight so I like the weight loss effect. However, often in the morning when I wake up I find large amounts of ketones in my urine and I correspondingly feel tired and nauseous. I know ketones indicate that I am losing weight, but are they bad for my body? Note, my blood sugars are generally in the okay range and my Glycosylated Hemoglobin is always in the normal range. The nausea is quite debilitating but will diminish after I have eaten.

My concern is: are the ketones doing any damage to my body, like wearing my kidneys out for example? Apart from eating is there anything you can recommend to counter the nausea? I eat a snack at about 10:00 P.M., and then don't eat anything else during the night. Do I need to get up at 3 A.M. or so in the morning to eat something and slow down my body losing weight?

Answer:

I am sorry that I don't know exactly what drug Lovan is. However, I can reassure you that having ketones in your urine is not 'wearing out your kidneys'. Have you asked your doctor about the side effects of Lovan? If you are having symptoms first thing in the morning, this may be part of your depression but it may be helped if you take your medication at a different time. It doesn't sound as if your diabetes is contributing to this, but you should just check that you are not going hypoglycaemic in the middle of the night.

Last Updated: Tuesday April 06, 2010 15:09:02
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